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How we tested the virtualization products
Sep. 29, 2008
We used the same host platform, an HP DL580 G5 (4-socket, 16-core Intel Xeon CPUs) server – for the qualitative portion of this test as we did in the quantitative portion of our test published earlier this month.
The virtual winner: VMware's ESX KOs a roughly built Hyper-V package
Sep. 29, 2008
When the dust settled in the lab after two long months of testing Microsoft's Hyper-V and VMware's ESX in the areas of performance, compatibility, management, and security, it all boiled down to two issues: experience ...
The issue of virtual compatibility
Sep. 29, 2008
Both hypervisors have requirements for the hardware they can run on and the VMs they can support.
User lauds AirWave multivendor WLAN management wares
Sep. 22, 2008
Neal Shelton, Network Engineering Supervisor for the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia, looks to the Airwave Management Platform to help him deal with the daily ups and downs of managing the district's ...
Navigating the WLAN management maze
Sep. 22, 2008
With enterprise-class wireless LANs well on the way to becoming the preferred -- if not default -- access for organizations across all industries, it's imperative that the software available to manage WLAN gear is up to ...
AirWave provides multi-vendor WLAN monitoring
Sep. 22, 2008
While it's usually desirable to have a completely homogeneous WLAN deployment, it is also perhaps unrealistic to assume this state of affairs can be maintained for an extended period of time.
Browser battle: Firefox 3.1 vs. Chrome vs. IE 8
Sep. 18, 2008
Mozilla's second alpha of Firefox 3.1 is upping the ante in the next-generation browser battle. So how do the main contenders stack up so far now? One thing's for sure, the Firefox team has taken note of Google's recent ...
Avaya offers wide array of unified communications wares
Sep. 08, 2008
There is a lot to like about Avaya's one-X Unified Communications platform.
How we tested Avaya's unifed communications gear
Sep. 08, 2008
Testing was conducted on the above listed Unified Communications components configured to provide UC for a network topology consisting of a main office and three branch office locations. The four-site deployment was ...
Cisco Nexus 7000 aims for data center dominance
Sep. 01, 2008
Building a big data center and looking for a switch to match? How do 256 10G Ethernet ports and nearly 1.7 terabits of capacity sound?
How we tested virtualization products
Sep. 01, 2008
We tested VMWare's ESX 3.51 Virtual Infrastructure Edition and Microsoft's Hyper-V 1.0. For the latter we also used the Microsoft RTM release of the Linux Interconnection Kit where noted.
VMware edges out Microsoft in virtualization performance test
Sep. 01, 2008
With the recent release of Microsoft's Hyper-V shaking up the hypervisor market, we decided to conduct a two-part evaluation pitting virtualization vendors against each other on performance as well as on features such ...
How we tested Cisco's switch
Sep. 01, 2008
We assessed the Cisco Nexus 7000 in six areas: high availability (HA) and resiliency; performance with layer-2 traffic, layer-3 IPv4 traffic, and IPv4 multicast traffic; features; and manageability and usability. A ...
How we tested Palo Alto's PA-4020 firewall
Aug. 11, 2008
We spent two weeks putting the Palo Alto Networks PA-4020 through a series of tests designed to measure its capabilities. During our testing, the PA-4020 was connected to the Internet and was able to download virus, ...
Palo Alto provides great visibility into network threats
Aug. 11, 2008
Palo Alto's PA-4020 is not just another firewall. Yes, it has what you'd expect in a basic firewall: 24 ports, divided into16 gigabit Ethernet ports and eight SFP ports. It has a rule base, some basic VPN capabilities, ...
Is Palo Alto's firewall a firewall or not?
Aug. 11, 2008
Palo Alto Networks has no illusions that a product on the market less than a year is going to have the feature set and depth that enterprise competitors Check Point, Cisco, and Juniper are offering. And, since most of ...
UTM – the buzzword Palo Alto won't cop to
Aug. 11, 2008
The PA-4020 is indeed a unified threat management firewall, even if Palo Alto Networks would like to pretend it isn't. Because it's a firewall with integrated VPN, intrusion prevention and detection, URL filtering, anti ...
Check Point IPS-1 fills a gap in its product line
Aug. 04, 2008
Check Point has finally delivered some useful fruit of its December 2006 acquisition of NFR Security.
How we tested Check Point's IPS
Aug. 04, 2008
We installed the Check Point IPS-1 Sensor 200C on our production network. The IPS-1 Sensor 200C has four IPS interfaces which are paired into two sets of fail-open (or fail-closed, if you want) Gigabit Ethernet ports.
Net results
Jul. 28, 2008
Partner Content
Explore the Ultrium Edge
The powerful tape technology can address data security with tape encryption as well as long term data protection.
Find out more
Disk and Tape Square Off
Discover what disk ...
Dell, LeftHand, NetApp score highest in performance testing
Jul. 28, 2008
Performance is difficult to measure, because there are few trustworthy tools. Performance is also difficult to characterize, because every application (and even versions of the same application) uses the file system ...
Going green with iSCSI SAN servers
Jul. 28, 2008
Using iSCSI arrays is already a "green" approach to the data center. By giving each server as much storage as it needs, considerable efficiencies in numbers of hard drives, RAID controllers and power utilization can be ...
FalconStor Software's NSS-S12
Jul. 28, 2008
The FalconStor NSS-S12 is a packaged offering based on FalconStor's own SAN Disk Manager, a combination of operating system and SAN management toolkit. As a software company first, and a hardware company second, ...
Products take multiple paths to interoperability
Jul. 28, 2008
With iSCSI SAN servers called upon to serve many different operating systems at the same time, an initial concern for any deployment is simple interoperability: Do these products work with different operating systems?
HP StorageWorks sets the bar for iSCSI SAN server security
Jul. 28, 2008
Our testing of iSCSI SAN servers show they all handle basic functions as advertised. But we had to dig deeper into other enterprise features offered — such as security, high availability, and expandability -- to find ...
Applications
Collaboration, E-mail, Instant messaging, Multimedia.
Operating Systems
Linux, NetWare, Windows
Security
Firewalls, Intrusion prevention/detection, Patch mgmt., VoIP, VPNs
Network World Lab Alliance members have years of experience reviewing networking products and work to construct real-world test beds for the products they test. Look for the Lab Alliance logo on reviews, or get more information on our Lab Alliance reviewers.
All Network World reviews are based on hands-on testing conducted by independent testers who belong to the Network World Lab Alliance. All tests are commissioned and paid for solely by Network World. No reviewer may accept any form of compensation from a vendor in the course of reviewing one of the vendor's products.
As standard operating procedure, Network World issues an invitation letter to all vendors whose products we're requesting for a given review. In it, we request the materials we need them to supply, answer their questions about our policies, and inform them of our deadlines.
Typically we ask vendors for products, and they provide them for review. However, we reserve the right to review products we acquire through other channels, including purchase. If we test a product a vendor has not tendered us, we notify the vendor of that fact. Once a vendor has sent a product we will review it and publish an article on that testing, unless we find technical problems that make it impossible for us to complete the process.
We try to review currently available production code for all products, because it represents what's available to our readers. However, we will look at beta code in the early stages of the review process in order to speed our final evaluation of the gold or released code.
For high-end hardware and software, we offer vendors the opportunity to visit the testing site to help us configure their products. If we invite one vendor, we issue the invitation to all vendors participating, though not all will choose to avail themselves of the opportunity.
If a reviewer uncovers performance results that deviate from our expectations, we advise that tester to contact the vendor and share his or her findings with the vendor in question. This gives the vendor the opportunity to verify our findings independently. We want to make sure that any unusual results we uncover can be attributed to the product and not to errors in our testing procedures. Where appropriate, we can include the vendor's feedback in a review to explain unexpected results. However, vendors' requests to read the text of a review article before it appears in print are not granted, and no vendor may influence the test results.
We respond immediately to vendors or readers who question our results or methodology. Accuracy is the primary criterion for every review, and any time we fail to meet that criterion, we make the appropriate corrections on our Web site and in print.
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